Capital Gazette Survivors Talk About Incident

Employees of the Capital Gazette were honored Wednesday night at the Annapolis Fourth of July parade nearly a week after a gunman targeted their newsroom, killing five people.

The four Capital Gazette employees WBAL-TV 11 spoke with were at the newspaper when a gunman killed their co-workers.

With those horrific memories still fresh, they said they're not ready to talk about that dreadful day, but they wanted to take this opportunity to thank the community for their support as they figure out how to move forward.

Wearing T-shirts that read "journalism matters" and "press on," journalists from the Capital Gazette newspaper stepped forward as part of the Fourth of July parade in Annapolis.

Four journalists who were inside the building when their colleagues were slaughtered walked up front in honor of their friends who were slain.

"The loss of those five people. I mean I've been saying it lot and I'll keep saying it. I don't mind. They were an infrastructure. They were a support structure for us," Gazette employee Phil Davis said.

That sense of structure was shattered by the gunshots that killed Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith and Wendy Winters.

The terror-filled tweets of Davis went viral the day he and his colleagues dodged the bullets that claimed the lives of fellow journalists, who were doing their jobs.

"I was in the building and I'm still a little shaken from it so I haven't really gone back to work yet," Gazette employee Paul Gillespie said.

"It's been almost exactly one week, I remember. So far things have been alright. Like you could probably tell my face looks a whole lot better, which is super," Gazette employee Rachel Pacella said.

They're as upbeat as they can be as they're still enduring pain, but they want to persevere as a show of gratitude to the first responders who are the reasons they're here. They also want you to think about why they're here.

"Five of my most favorite people in the whole world are not here, and I'm not happy about that," Selene San Felice said.

"We lost a big chunk of our family, you know, the Capital Gazette family, and it's going to be very hard," Gillespie said.

"If I ever do go back, that's going to be the difficult thing knowing that they're not going to be there, and they're not going to be supporting me," Davis said.

Thursday marks one week since the deadly mass shooting.

The American Society of News Editors, as well as the Baltimore Sun Media Group are asking newsrooms around the world to pause for a moment of reflection and meditation at 2:33 p.m. -- the moment police said Jarrod Ramos began shooting at the Capital Gazette newspaper.

Anne Arundel County Executive Steve Schuh will join county employees at the flagpole outside Arundel Center at 44 Calvert Street in Annapolis for a small gathering remembering those lost in the tragedy. Other County office complexes will hold similar gatherings.

"At times like this, it is crucial we come together as a community," Schuh said. "I am encouraging employees across county government to join us in remembering these fallen journalists."